Joshua's Current Mental State

Interesting analysis. I believe we can go deeper into why Anthony Joshua is displaying weak mental fortitude.

Despite him being a world renowned celebrated champion, and deservingly so, Anthony Joshua has been trying to project to the public eye that he is what you call today a "road man". Growing up we have all come across these types of people, these gangster types, these hardmen types, but by the time they enter their 30s the successful ones mature up. But not Joshua. Instead of leaving that road man phase behind in his 20s, Joshua has been doubling down that he is some sort of road man gangsta from the mean streets of North West London. And by North West London we are not talking about Harlesden, or Kilburn, or Stonebridge. Rather he is talking about Watford. I have been to Watford many times and it's full of Harry Potter attraction tourists and Romanian construction CSCS workers. Only gangsta that has come out of Watford is Vinnie Jones. With the rise of UK rap music, shows like Top Boy and rising London crime rates, Joshua has conformed to this "road man" image instead of maturing into a professional boxing champion. Here is Joshua thinking he is a gangsta rapper:-

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Champions are supposed to look up to champions. Look up to greats, look up to righteous disciplined folks who achieved great feats but instead Joshua would rather look up to glorified criminals inflating his road man ego.

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Take Derek Chisora as a case study. In his 20s he came across as a rough man from the streets, but took the initiative to go to Cardiff and train under the late great Italian Welsh white man Enzo Calzaghe. An enlightening experience for Chisora which led him to maturing up in his 30s and 40s leaving all that gangsta stuff behind in his 20s. Chisora has grown into a respect mentally stable man despite showing signs of mental problems in his 20s.

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What didn't help this fragile ego of Joshua were his trainers. Robert McCracken always looked scared to tell Joshua to grow up. Robert Garcia saw Joshua as a money making opportunity, and Ben Davidson doesn't look confident in telling Joshua any harsh truths fearing a backlash, leading Joshua's team to be filled with nothing but back slapping yes men who inflate this scarface road man fantasy Anthony Joshua has desired to portray.

What further didn't help Joshua's fragile mind state was the ass kissing from Eddie Hearn and Kugan Cassius.

Joshua needs to grow up. He is in his mid 30s now, this road man image he seems infatuated with is for teenagers and men in their 20s still figuring out life. Joshua should have transcended this phase already.

 

A road man is a road man for life.

 

Out of all the analyses out of the ass this was the worst, major props for that comedy gold!

 

Further analysis: Face Off and Thrash Talking.

It's an age old boxing custom for the two combatants to face off in the lead up of their fight. Stare each other down, get a read of their opponent, perhaps even try and intimidate their opponent all while selling the fight to the public. Usually a professional boxer accepts this face off tradition as being part and parcel with the sport of boxing, but not Joshua.

Anthony Joshua's deeply embedded road man fantasies has often caused him to bark back during traditional stare downs. Take the following clip for example, Dominic Breazeale does nothing out of the ordinary while staring into his opponent, AJ's eyes during a customary face off. But Anthony Joshua's road man fantasy overtook him and he takes Breazeale's stare personal:-

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All the boxing greats have been stared down. Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis, Big George Foreman and so on. While they accepted this to be a boxing custom and answered in kind during the actual fight night, Road Man Joshua felt the need to protect his street cred by firing back at the normally behaved Dominic Breazeale. Robert Helenius also seems to cross this imaginary line of disrespecting Anthony Joshua's Watford Road Man credibility:-

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If Anthony Joshua doesn't have the mental fortitude to handle the traditional boxing stare downs how can we expect him to handle actual adversities on fight night? And its not just Boxing Stare Downs that have caused Anthony Joshua's road Man fantasy to kick in, but simple thrash talk from Daniel Dubois: "Lets go now", was able to flip Joshua into a fit of rage.

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Responding like this towards a dangerous opponent like Dubois is one thing. But Joshua a multi millionaire champion felt the need to respond to scrawny college kids drowning in student loan debt when they popped a joke towards him.

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After watching that video I think many of us in this thread need to be cautious a road man fueled Anthony Joshua may turn up infront of us threatening to crack our glass jaws. I mentioned Lennox Lewis earlier who quoted a famous quote of Imam Shafi'ee on his twitter some years back: "Lions do not lose sleep over the opinions of sheep". Thats an example of a proper professional.

 

Amazing post

 

I agree that Joshua had this bizarre attitude sometimes.